Temporally and Spatially Resolved Electrochemical Infrared Spectroscopy

时空分辨电化学红外光谱

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-05157
• 负责人: Burgess, Ian
• 金额: $ 3.93万
• 依托单位: University of Saskatchewan
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=646539
• 关键词: Temporally; Spatially; Resolved; Electrochemical; Infrared

Electrochemistry is of great value and importance to human activity and the global economy. For example, electrical power sources including batteries, dye-sensitized solar cells, fuels cells and supercapacitors all require electrochemical processes to generate electricity. Furthermore, many industrial practices rely on electrocatalytic transformations to manufacture valuable commodity chemicals and materials. Fundamental studies that lead to better understanding and more efficient means to perform electrochemical reactions would be of great societal benefit as it is estimated that electrochemical activities consume about 10% of the world's electrical energy. Information pertaining to commercially important reaction mechanisms has traditionally been inferred from techniques that measure electrical characteristics (e.g. current- voltage relationships). A deficiency of using purely electrical methods to study electrochemical reactions is the lack of chemical sensitivity they provide and for this reason spectroscopy (the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with atoms and molecules) can be combined with traditional methods to gain molecular-level information. This research program seeks to learn new information about electrochemical reactions through the coupling of traditional electrochemical techniques with advanced infrared (IR) spectroscopy techniques. Our proposed research aims to create surfaces that amplify the IR signal from a very small number of molecules by many orders of magnitude so that we can measure and quantify what chemical species and reactions occur during electrochemical transformations such as the oxidation of fuels in fuel cells. For example, we are proposing to use the unique properties of IR radiation generated at Canada's only synchrotron facility (the Canadian Light Source located in Saskatoon, SK) to follow the fate of molecules on the time scale of 1/100,000 of a second. This information is very important as the performance of electrocatalytic materials can be adversely affected by very short-lived intermediates. Identifying which intermediates exist and the distribution of the final products of electrochemical reactions will allow us to assess the performance of existing electrocatalytic materials and help design new and improved materials for more efficient electrochemical reactions.

电化学对人类活动和全球经济具有很大的价值和重要性。例如，电力源在内，包括电池，染料敏化的太阳能电池，燃料电池和超级电容器都需要电化学工艺来发电。此外，许多工业实践依靠电催化转化来生产有价值的商品化学品和材料。导致更好地理解和更有效的手段进行电化学反应的基本研究将具有很大的社会利益，因为据估计，电化学活动消耗了世界上约10％的电能。传统上，与商业上重要的反应机制有关的信息是根据测量电特性（例如电流关系）的技术来推断的。使用纯电气方法研究电化学反应的缺乏是它们提供的化学敏感性缺乏，因此，可以将光谱法（电磁辐射与原子和分子的相互作用）与传统的方法相结合，以获得分子级别的信息。该研究计划旨在通过将传统电化学技术与高级红外（IR）光谱技术耦合来学习有关电化学反应的新信息。我们提出的研究旨在创建表面，从而通过许多数量级从少数分子中扩增IR信号，以便我们可以测量和量化在电化学转化期间发生的化学物种和反应，例如燃料电池中燃料燃料的氧化。例如，我们建议使用加拿大唯一同步器设施（位于萨斯卡通的加拿大光源，SK，SK）生成的IR辐射的唯一特性，以一秒钟的时间尺度的时间尺度遵循分子的命运。这些信息非常重要，因为电催化材料的性能可能会受到非常短的中间体的不利影响。确定存在哪些中间体以及电化学反应的最终产物的分布将使我们能够评估现有的电催化材料的性能，并有助于设计新的和改进的材料，以实现更有效的电化学反应。